1. Evaluation of the Cuban Wind Atlas
Center for Atmospheric Physics of the INSMET
Meteorological Research Division
(Environment Canada)
Project funded by Canadian International Development Agency
Havana, June 4th 2013

2. Introduction
Institute of Meteorology uses its observation data measured at 67 meteorological stations and 10 wind observation towers distributed over the entire territory.
The Mean Absolute Error (MAE) is computed as a measure of accuracy.
Quality control checks for the observation dataset was performed thoroughly.

3. Validate WEST: Surface Observation Station and Meteorological Towers
Obs. Surface Met Stations Long Data (> 30 yr)
Obs. Met Tower (3 yr)

4. Validations:
The figs. shows the estimated vs. the observed wind speed (top) and the MAE in terms of the observed mean wind speed (bottom) for the 67 meteorological stations at 10 m heights.
The overall MAE is 0.97 m/s.
The scatter plot in Fig. (top) reveals that, overall, the model tends to overestimate the wind speed for wind speed less than 2.5 m/s.

5. Validations:
According to Fig., only 16 stations has MAE above 1.5 m/s.
WEST estimates reasonably well the wind speed values at all the stations with observed wind speed above 2.5 m/s (22 stations in total) producing MAE in the range m/s. These stations are located in a relatively flat terrain very close to the shore.
Of the remaining stations that reported wind speed values below 2.5 m/s (45 stations in total), 12 stations reported values of MAE below 0.72 m/s and the rest (33 stations) produced MAE in the range m/s.

6. Validations: < 0.5 m/s Turiguano Wind Farms Gibara I y II
New Wind
Farm
Los Canarreos
Wind Farms
< 0.5 m/s

7. Validations:
> 0.5 m/s y
< 1.0 m/s

8. Validations:
> 1.0 m/s y
< 1.5 m/s

9. Validations:
> 1.5 m/s y
< 2.0 m/s

10. Validations:
> 2.0 m/s

11. Validations:

12. Validations:
Fig. shows the vertical profile of the observed (black lines) and estimated (red lines) wind speed at selected towers.
Both, model and observation capture the tendency of the wind speed to increase with height.
The vertical shear, however, is different between observation and estimation. The values of the vertical shear derived from the model tend to be smaller compared to those observed.
For some towers, like El Brinco and Camaguey, the two curves cross each other. That is in general for the majority of the towers in which the surface wind at the lowest level (10 m) is overestimated by the model.

13. Validations: Meteorological Tower
MAE
10m = m/s
30m = 0.97 m/s
50m = 0.89 m/s
100m = 1.58 m/s

14. Comparing with previous map
NREL Map. Year 2005
WAsP Map. Year 2006
WEST Map. Year 2013

15. Comparing with previous map

16. Comparing with previous map

17. WEST for Cuba: Summary however
1) WEST estimates reasonably the wind resource in tropical climate
2) MAE=0.97 m/s (stations), MAE=0.93 m/s (towers)
3) Areas of wind potential identified consistent with observations
however
1) No information on the temporal evolution of the wind resource (diurnal, annual, etc, cycles)
2) Computational cost is still high
3) New experiments based on sensitive studies and principal components analysis ongoing.

18. Thank you